


A Fall of Snow, Two Bodies

by Faebreath



Category: Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb
Genre: Death, Gen, set during royal assassin, slight gore, some violence, what even is charim's characterisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-18 17:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7323919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faebreath/pseuds/Faebreath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Burrich came back alive from Verity's quest, but many good men and women did not. </p>
<p>A brief coda for Hod and Charim, two characters whose death I thought deserved more than a passing mention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fall of Snow, Two Bodies

“You know,” said Hod, her voice thick with pain but still maintaining its trademark matter-of-fact tone, “I never thought I’d die like this.”

“Serving your king?” Charim spoke without lifting his head, focused on tearing off long strips of his undershirt and pressing them against the gaping wound in the weaponmaster’s abdomen.

“Don’t you take that tone with me,” Hod warned, and suddenly they were both not huddled against a frozen tree somewhere near the Mountain Kingdom, but on the Buckkeep training grounds on a fresh spring morning. _Look lively, boy. At least try to parry, for goodness’ sake!_ Charim had never taken to weapons, standing sombre-faced with a too-big helm slipping over his eyes, but as the child of seasoned and respected guards he had been expected to take lessons. It had been a relief to escape to the world of muddied riding-cloaks and perpetually untidy scrolls that he had been inhabiting with Verity for so many years now. He had said as much to his old teacher at the start of their journey, when their hearts had still been light, and she had replied that that sounded a far grimmer battlefield than any she wished to face.

Now she turned her head and let out a harsh wet noise before carrying on. “I wanted to die fighting. Die face-to-face with my killer with a battle-cry on my lips. A good death. Not hunted down and stabbed from the shadows like a… like an animal.”

“I will not lie to you and call this a good death,” said Charim, bending closer to her to take up her hand and squeeze it, despite the pain that shot up from his leg (he could feel a burning there, and wondered if the assassin’s arrows had been poisoned), “But it was a good life. If anyone’s earned enough honour in battle to be carried safely to the afterlife, it’s you.”

Hod gave a weak smile. “Flatterer.” Strange, just how much blood was pouring out of one sword-wound. More and more and more. Hod was in the business of spilling blood, but she never would have guessed that there was this much in a person to spill.

More and more.

Charim looked down at the makeshift bandages, utterly saturated, and swallowed. He tilted his face up, towards the night sky; he fancied he could feel the beginnings of snow brush against his cheeks. “Our king,” he said, echoing his own words in a soft voice. If not now, then when?

He finished: “Verity.”

She met his gaze with eyes clouded by death, but her smile remained. “Aye.”

Treason, he supposed. But it hardly mattered now. There was no noose that would be quick enough to catch them.

Hod’s eyes slid closed, and her breathing was rough in the stillness of the winter air. Charim was about to raise a hand to her face, to try to call her back from wherever was further than this - _come on, boy, I know I didn’t hit you that hard_ , a gruff tutor’s proffered hand to help him out of the dirt - when she spoke. One word, its two syllables strained and broken but still spoken with the quiet certainty that he had heard from her often, discussing, perhaps, with Verity the tactics they should employ with their new warships, or dissecting the possible motives of Raiders.

“Regal.”

She did not need to explain further. “I know,” he said, his tongue feeling impossibly light with relief from the secrets and suspicions that had been weighing on it for so, so long. Incredible, how those two names could say everything so completely. Here, in the stark white-and-blackness of the winter night, the endless lies and half-truths he had lived for a lifetime in the stifling chambers of Buckkeep seemed foolish, even ridiculous. The knot of treasonous doubt he kept always hidden in his belly began to unfurl, sending up tendrils of guilt, shame, and fierce anger. Heat pricked at his eyes. So, he would die here - of that he was sure, could feel the cold steel of mortality against his throat as real as the freezing air around them - without ever speaking what he knew in his heart to be true, without ever swearing his fealty to Verity as his King. How many more would have their lives discarded at the whim of one prince, all because cowards like him held their tongues?

How many speeches had he heard from the highest tables that promised pure truth and swift justice? With a flash of rage, Charim knew them all lip-service.

The thump of hooves on the last night’s snowfall brought him abruptly back from his dark thoughts. For a moment he entertained the slightest hope that it might be Verity or Burrich, their stalking hunters shaken off, but that was quickly extinguished when he heard a laughing exchange of Inlander voices. They did not bother to quiet themselves as they neared their kill, and Charim felt a bite of fresh anger. They approached carelessly. They knew that their victims would not be able to run far.

Bastards.

He was prepared, a wild and uncharacteristic recklessness gripping his heart, to make his last stand there, a guard for the body of his fallen companion, but as he moved to stand Hod grasped his hand again.

“Don’t be a bloody fool.” The words so weak Charim could hardly hear them. “Go.”

He - or anyone he knew of, for that matter - had never questioned Hod’s authority when it came to the wisest course of action on a battlefield, and he didn’t plan to start then. The two servants of the King clasped hands in a final warrior’s salute, before a whinny from the edge of the small copse sent Charim half-running, half-stumbling away from the blood-stained tree.

It was hopeless, of course. The frenzied barks of dogs ( _they must have kept them muzzled while they tracked us_ , a detached part of Charim’s mind observed coolly) could be heard growing steadily louder, and Charim knew he could not offer them a better trail than the blood leaking steadily from his arrow-wound. Snow was beginning to fall in earnest, making a fresh layer on top of the already deep blanket that seemed to lie over this whole land; it was a double-edged sword, numbing the agony in his leg, but making him clumsy as his feet sank into the deadening cold.

He twisted round only once, breath coming fast and freezing painfully in his lungs, just long enough to see the flakes of snow settling on top of the figure huddled at the base of the tree. _What will become of us?_ , Charim wondered. Their hunters would have no use for Hod if they could not wring any information out of her, and perhaps it would be better for them if no body was ever found: let the people think that Prince Verity’s foolishness led them all astray, off the path and into an uncertain end that could never be proven.

Charim felt a surge of sorrow at the thought of Hod’s body being left without ceremony or proper burial - left to be covered by the snow, and forgotten. El knew she deserved more than that.

Mayhap they all did, or had, at one time.

Time ceased to have any meaning for Charim. There were only sensations: the cold, the dark, the panic that had replaced the blood pulsing in his veins. So he could not have said how long it was before his feet caught a hidden dip in the ground and he was sent sprawling onto his hands and knees. _Like an animal, indeed._

Light from torches spilt out over the snow around him - golden, and showing also sparkling white and vivid red. A blind fumble for his knife.

He heard a jangling of tack as one of the riders dismounted, tried to spin to face them, found he was unable to put any weight on his injured leg. His hands shook badly, but he still tried to hold the knife in the fighting stance he had been taught.

_“Use both hands - don’t try to be clever. Keep your weight low and your knees bent. Hold it out in front of you - no, not like that. Like this. Watch your opponent carefully, and when you see them lunge, then - “_

The arrow caught him in the base of his throat at close range. Charim was dead before he hit the ground, the calm voice cut off mid-sentence. One of the Inlander soldiers turned his face into the light with his boot.

“Damn. Just his manservant.”

“And the woman?”

“The weapons-tutor. Come on. Tommas thinks he took the westerly path.”

Without any further ceremony, the soldiers left.

Quietly, and unbidden, the snow covered the two bodies.


End file.
